Day: October 18, 2019

Malaysian cricket-based sustainable food technology startup Ento announced that it has closed a seed funding round led by Singaporean based Venture Capital firm, Rapzo Capital. Kevin Wu, CEO & Founder of Ento said that the funding will be used for production and regional market expansion.

On its website, Ento states that the company will focus on several key growth areas such as production capacity expansion, new product lines creation, new market access, and automation technology development within its production process.

The end goals, Ento noted, are to reduce cost structure, improve production efficiency, and set up a scalable technology platform.

Wu said: “Over the next 12 months, we aim to have a strong presence both online and offline. Ento has set its sights on target markets within Southeast Asia, especially in Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia.”

According to an article on Vulcan Post, Ento produced about 1,000 packets of crickets per month back in May but has since increased production to about 5,000 packets a month.

Also Read: Vietnam-based cricket protein startup Cricket One secures funding from 500 Startups, Masik Enterprises, bringing sustainable alternative to beef, chicken

Ento also plans to introduce a mass-targeted new product named Cricket Granola Protein Bites. Aside from snacks, Ento has also been supplying some manufacturers with their cricket powders.
With the significant shift in the healthy lifestyle trend that’s here to stay, Ento also managed to educate the public, especially Malaysians, about the benefits of consuming crickets.

After a failed Kickstarter campaign, Wu and the team learned to retreat to focus only on reaching customers within Malaysia and Southeast Asia, Vulcan Post shared.

“We have competitions from countries like Thailand, which is also our targeted expansion spot. But we are the first Malaysian company to go regional with a healthy and sustainable protein,” said Wu.

The company recently added key hires into their team with new COO, Antonnio Hong, ex-Head of Strategy & Corporate Planning of Hong Leong Bank, also advisor Scott Su, the Head of Tech Ventures at Sime Darby Plantation.

“I think the planet needs an alternative and sustainable protein to sustain. The population will hit 10 billion by 2050 and there’s no way we can sustain the amount of food we have for future populations. There are already issues in areas where there are drought and hard-to-farm lands. We believe that switching to insect-based protein is a potential solution to solve our future problems,” Wu quoted saying.

Ento’s funding made the news almost at the same time as Cricket One, a Vietnamese cricket protein startup that secured funding from 500 Startups and Masik Enterprise earlier this week.
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Picture Credit: Ento

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Zilingo, the online fashion retail startup headquartered in Singapore, launches a women-empowering initiative called SheWorkz, seeking to give women at home a chance to monetise their free time and space in their homes to start a business by providing them vocational training, financing, and business development opportunities.

SheWorkz wants to bring women back to the workforce, on their own terms, and pave the way toward greater financial independence without the constraints of a traditional workplace.

In its official statement, Zilingo shares that in South and Southeast Asia, women contribute a meagre 31 per cent to the workforce and they contribute even less, 24 per cent to the GDP. Meanwhile, a McKinsey Global Institute report found that advancing women’s equality in the workplace could add US$12 trillion to the global GDP by 2025,

SheWorkz has a four-step program:

1. Identifying women to participate in a 20-day vocational training course funded 100 percent by Zilingo to build critical skills such as batik making, pattern design, sewing, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy. Participants are then grouped according to skill-level and geography into ‘micro-factories’.
2. Connecting micro-factories are to the global market through Zilingo’s network where they have the opportunity to receive apparel orders from brands.
3. Zilingo to provide access to microfinance through verified lines of credit from partners.
4. Allowing flexible working hours to balance work and family by enabling women to work from home.

SheWorkz’s inauguration event was attended by guest-of-honour, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Darmin Nasution.

Also Read: Zilingo CEO Ankiti Bose on failures, challenges, handling depression and more

SheWorkz has led to the creation of Indonesia’s first-ever fashion cluster for microcredit financing, termed the “fashion and lifestyle cluster”.

Zilingo, founded in 2015 by Ankiti Bose, CEO, and Co-founder of Zilingo, has been vocal about women empowerment. At Zilingo, women make up more than half of the company’s employees; with close to 50 percent of the C-level executives being female.

“Women are the most underutilized and latent potential Asian economies. They contribute only 24% of GDP in South and Southeast Asia. We kept thinking about this and the opportunity compelled us to act. SheWorkz will be the largest decentralised manufacturing ecosystem in the world. Airbnb taught us that every extra bedroom in your house could be a hotel with some investment and vision. Then why can’t that extra space be a workshop/small manufacturing unit utilising the time women have on their hands-on account of falling out of the workforce,” said Bose​.

In February this year, the company secured US$226 million in Series D round of funding from a host of investors, including Temasek, Sequoia Capital India, Singapore-based Burda Principal Investments, Sofina (Belgium) and EDBI.

Zilingo aims to expand SheWorkz’s reach and upskill over 2,000 women in countries such as India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Cambodia by 2022.
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Thailand’s Plizz raises funding, expands to legal tech vertical – Press Release

Thailand-based DIY accounting platform Plizz announced a US$300,000 seed funding round from Singapore-based VC firm REAPRA.

The company also announced its expansion to the legal tech vertical, turning it into a one-stop solution for SMEs in the country.

The funding round followed a US$200,000 funding it has received from angel investors.

In an email to e27, Plizz CEO and Co-Founder Benoît Meneau said that the funding will be used to develop automation of accounting tasks and support the launch of the new vertical.

India’s MyGate raises US$56M in Series B funding round – Press Release

MyGate, a Bangalore-based company that focussed on enhancing convenience and security in gated premises, announced that it has raised US$56 million in Series B funding from Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings, US-based JS Capital LLC, Tiger Global Management alongside existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

MyGate enables its users in gated communities to do tasks such as communicate with neighbours, manage visitors, maintain attendance record and salary payments for daily help, discover services, and pay society maintenance bills.

In a press statement, the company said that it has seen five times growth over the past year and is now present in 1.2 million homes across 11 cities in India.

“With this fresh funding, MyGate plans to solidify its leadership position by building innovative solutions for eliminating friction in interactions between the home and the outside world, providing convenience and security to its users. The company is also focussing on increasing the efficiency of other stakeholders such as security personnel, local service providers and e-commerce companies,” it stated.

Also Read: DIY accounting should be on every startup’s and SME’s digital arsenal for profitability

Taiwan’s Appier acquires Japanese AI company Emin – Press Release

Taiwan-based AI company Appier announced the acquisition of Emotion Intelligence (Emin), a Tokyo-based AI solutions provider that predicts online consumer purchasing behaviour.

Done “mostly” via cash deal, the value of the acquisition was undisclosed and the deal is effective immediately.

In a press statement, Emin’s platform is described as having the ability to identify which customers will definitely make a purchase and those who definitely will not. It focuses particularly on shoppers who are undecided but likely to purchase with an additional incentive in the form of a coupon with limited validity, encouraging a faster transaction.

As part of Appier, Emin will provide clients with a full suite of AI-powered marketing tools with which marketers can engage consumers across multiple channels and devices.

Indian used car marketplace Cars24 raises US$100M – ET Tech

Indian used car marketplace Cars24 has raised a US$100 million Series D funding round led by Unbound and KCK Global, according to a report by ET Tech.

Moore Strategic Ventures has also participated in the funding round.

While its valuation after the latest round was not disclosed, Cars24 was reported to have been valued at US$550 million during its previous funding rounds, which the company has raised US$100 million.

“The priority is to scale the business right now. We are in 50 cities currently and will be ending the current calendar year at 75 cities. By the end of 2020, we expect to be in 200 cities … There is a long tail in India when it comes to expansion. The top-75 cities only contribute around 65 per cent of our action,” said Cars24 COO Mehul Agrawal.

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Image Credit: Josh Appel on Unsplash

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ZEN Rooms, a franchise of economy and mid-range hotels in Southeast Asia, just received a shot in the arm in the form of an investment from Korea’s billion-dollar travel group Yanolja. The Yanolja-ZEN alliance is expected to intensify the competition in the market, which is currently dominated by local player RedDoorz and India-based OYO Rooms. 

According to Nathan Boublil, Co-founder and CEO of ZEN Rooms, these companies don’t pose any threat. “OYO suffers from poor inventory quality and average ratings, and so does RedDoorz,” he says.

In this interview with e27, Boublil talks about the market, competition, and challenges faced by budget hotels companies in Southeast Asia.

Is this an acquisition? After this deal, how much stake does Yanolija hold in ZEN Rooms?

Nathan Boublil: Yanolja is doubling down on its earlier investment by making an additional investment, buying our of early investors’ stakes, and forming a full strategic alliance on technology and distribution with its backers Booking Holdings.

So the transaction is a partial exit with a path for more to come.

The budget hotels segment in Southeast Asia is heating up, with leading players such as OYO and RedDoorz raising massive fundings. Does this indicate the industry has become mature and is ripe for consolidation?

NB: The budget hotel industry is still far from being mature; the penetration of franchised hotels in Southeast Asia (SEA) still remains low at less than 20 per cent (including ZEN Rooms, OYO, Reddoorz and all other legacy hotel chains). Mature markets such as the EU, the US and China have more than 50 per cent of franchised hotels.

Also, SEA is the world’s fastest-growing travel market, so a lot of supply will naturally come onto the market.

RedDoorz is a local player, and OYO is a company with deep pockets. How is the ZEN-Yanolja alliance planning to hold these bulls by their horns?

NB: Both RedDoorz and OYO make crucial mistakes in customer centricity and sustainability. They focus on the number of rooms rather than customer satisfaction and margins. They use too many short-sighted tactics to artificially pump vanity metrics, to the detriment of building a long-term value-adding hospitality brand.

There are no shortcuts in hospitality. A hospitality franchise is not its room count but is the quality of its inventory (guest ratings) and its economics!

Since day one, our focus has been more on inventory quality and customer ratings, more than room count. Room count is not a KPI at ZEN. For two years in a row, ZEN has the highest guest rating on Booking.com of all budget franchises at 8.1. 

OYO suffers from poor inventory quality and average ratings and so does RedDoorz, with average rating on Booking.com in the low 7s. 

Of course, this is a very unsustainable model, which cannot last for long. The market ends up catching up with you and investors will, too.

So we are different from OYO and RedDoorz in the following ways:

1. We do not focus on room count but prefer to focus on inventory quality and customer ratings: Unlike Reddoorz and OYO, we pro-actively reject inventory and are as focused as much on customer ratings as other metrics. That is why our avg rating on Booking.com is 8.1 and our last 12 months NPS score is 55. The Reddoorz and OYO inventories are of inferior quality, which is senseless. The ‘raison d’etre’ of a hospitality franchise is to serve customers better than independent hotels. If you have thousands of properties but don’t do a good job serving customers, you are just a bigger lousy thing!
2. Focus on unit economics/margins: the unit economics of OYO and RedDoorz don’t look good presently with a lot of loss-making inventory. Adding more losses doesn’t make earlier losses disappear. As Scott Galloway puts it, “WeWork part Deux”.
3. Much more hands-on: we started leasing and fully operating properties three years ago, now representing 30 per cent of our overall portfolio. We love being hands-on and highly operational and can fully operationalise a property to 8.5 guest rating within four weeks. OYO Southeast Asia doesn’t, and RedDoorz is only just starting lease and operate.

The strategic alliance with Yanolja and its backers Booking Holdings grants ZEN a huge and above all, unique competitive advantages in both hotel technology and sales distribution, which cannot be replicated by any other actor. 

Having Booking Holdings as a de facto investor in ZEN is unique.

We always behave with integrity to our hotel partners. We don’t and never will use shady tactics with our hotel clients.

So just like any healthy hospitality business should, we have never and will never favour vanity metrics like scale/revenue over guest ratings and margins. Our philosophy, values and focus points are different, and we would instead not be associated with either OYO or RedDoorz.

That’s why we are the first to go through a strategic investment last year and now partial exit already to a leading, sustainable player like Yanolja.

Yanolja said it plans to leverage new-age tech such as IoT, AI, AR and VT etc. Can you shed more light on this?

NB: Yanolja is heavily investing in hospitality R&D to build the budget hotel of the future. This is being done by automating more and more functions within hotels (self check-ins, robotics, voice controls, sensors etc.) and improving cost efficiency through smart connections between hotel software and hardware (electric system, etc.). 

ZEN and Yanolja are planning to introduce these new technologies into ZEN’s locations starting Q1 2020, enhancing customer experience and optimising operating costs, thus allowing value-for-money improvements.

Yanolja also recently acquired eZee, the #2 hotel PMS provider globally and #1 in Southeast Asia. ZEN, eZee and Yanolja teams are currently working hand in hand to build the hotel operating system of the future. Yanolja is announcing the global launch of its new hotel automation solution at the ITB Asia conference this week.

What are the current trends in the budget hotels space?

NB: Hotel franchising in the region will keep growing for the next decade, following the US and China paths. Budget hotel space in SEA has long been a sub-performing industry due to its high level of fragmentation and lack of training and efficiency.

Travellers become more demanding to the quality of essential services, while online reviews play a significant role in customer choice. Hotel owners struggle to compete for demand with ever-growing operating costs. In the last four years, ZEN has been working hard on solving these pain points through franchising, bringing transparency and efficiency to the market.

Does the overall slowdown in the real-estate space affect this industry?

NB: No, as no matter what, SEA remains a fast-growing travel market and is far from reaching its potential. The growing middle class and economy airlines across the developing markets of the region fuel the exponential domestic and regional demand for short-term accommodation. The fundamentals of economy tourism in SEA are strong irrespective of the economic climate.

Franchising is a good option for real-estate asset owners as it allows to turn a property into a working business and generate stable returns coming from this growing travel industry.

What are the major challenges facing the budget hotels space in SEA?

NB: Improve itself to cope with fast-growing demand: hygiene, safety, value for money. 

Adapt their offer to new sources of tourists: Chinese, Europeans, Southeast Asians etc.

Sustainable growth of hotels supply: with the lack of regulation, what tends to happen is uncontrolled overinvestment in trendy destinations, resulting in oversupply of hotels in the long term: Bali, Phuket and many other destinations in Thailand have suffered from this already. 

Once a gold mine, Bali has now become a nightmare for many of the 10,000 hotel owners there, experiencing average occupancy below 50 per cent throughout the year and struggling to make ends meet.

The post ‘RedDoorz, OYO use too many short-sighted tactics to artificially pump vanity metrics’: ZEN Rooms CEO Nathan Boublil appeared first on e27.

It’s not common for a country in developing regions like Southeast Asia to have full government support for its tech ecosystem, and Malaysia is one of them.

According to Export Gov, Malaysia’s e-commerce sector benefits from the implementation of programs under the National e-commerce Strategic Roadmap’s (NeSR) with the National e-commerce Council (NeCC) on the driver seat.

It comprises of various ministries and agencies with a mission to double Malaysia’s e-commerce growth rate to reach a GDP contribution of US$53 billion by 2020.

With a dynamic economy and ready infrastructure for digital technologies, Malaysia recorded 25 million social media users, 40.24 million mobile subscriptions, and 24 million use social media on their mobile devices per January 2019.

The high numbers directly resulted in Malaysia boasting 16.53 million online shoppers (account for 50 per cent of the population) and 62 per cent of mobile users using their devices to shop online.

Gov further concludes that Malaysian online shoppers are motivated by price advantages, product range, and the availability of reviews. They look for free shipping, convenience, and exclusive deals offered by online stores.

Also Read: These 7 homegrown e-commerces are on track to put Thailand on global map

With that being said, Lazada.com.my and Shopee.com.my come in strong with zero per cent commission and free shipping module and zero per cent transaction fees respectively, which instantly put both on top for online shopping choices among Malaysians.

However, when it comes to local e-commerce startups, these 9 names offer Malaysians a different take on online shopping with their better understanding of the market.

GoShop

GoShop sets different precedence for e-commerce in Malaysia by offering premium and trusted products from categories like beauty, health and wellness, home appliances and kitchenware, living, sports and leisure, digital, and many more.

The startup is based in East Malaysia, with Sabah and Sarawak-concentrated customers. CEO Grace Lee said that the startup has a dedicated warehouse established in East Malaysia since December 2017, as reported in The Borneo Post.

Go Shop, established in 2014, is operated by Astro GS Shop Sdn Bhd, a joint venture between Malaysia’s integrated consumer media group, Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (60 per cent) and GS Home Shopping Inc (40 per cent). It describes itself as Malaysia’s 24-hour lifestyle shopping destination where products and services are demonstrated, sold on multiple platforms including TV, Astro Go, online e-commerce, and mobile commerce to offer an anytime-anywhere retail experience.

Go Shop believes that its live product demonstration on TV allows for a three-dimensional experience of their products. “Our customers can relate better with the products and how these products suit their lifestyles,” said Lee

Mudah.com

Mudah.com, which means “easy” in Malay, was founded in 2007 as a buy and sell online platform.

Mudah offers a range of diverse categories – from cars, electronics, properties, jobs, sports, collectibles, toys, books, and computers, amongst many others.

Recently, under the leadership of CEO Gaurav Bhasin, Mudah entered into a partnership with Lendela, a Singapore-based loan comparison company, allowing the latter to offer their services on the Mudah’s platform. According to Fintech News Malaysia, the partnership allows Mudah’s customers to apply for loans directly on Mudah and to bring more transparency and ease-of-use to borrowers while reducing risk and cost for lenders.

Lelong

Lelong has been around since 1998, making it one of the few firsts that spotted the e-commerce potential in Malaysia. It is a C2C platform that allows users to sell and purchase second-hand items.

Founded by Tan and Kwok Wei and headquartered in Selangor, it offers products from gadgets to fashion and accessories in an online auction marketplace approach. Lelong, alongside Lmall.my, is operating under its parent company Interbase Resources, which also manages online marketplace Superbuy.my and e-payment platform Netpay.my.

Just last year, Lelong announced that it has acquired digital marketing agency Mataris Agency for an undisclosed sum.

i-Pmart

Founded in 2001, i-Pmart belongs to the i-Pmart Group of Companies. It focusses mainly on the international market since 2005, selling mobile phones and electronic parts online.

It is the holder of ‘MSC status’ in Malaysia, which makes it a part of the country’s ‘Multimedia Super Corridor’ initiative to promote Malaysia as a regional center for world-class technology businesses.

Also Read: Key challenges and opportunities in Malaysia’s e-commerce scene

i-Pmart was founded by its CEO Mart Tang, and it just recently added bitcoin to the list of accepted payment methods to provide the option for its worldwide shipping to China and US, Coindesk has learned.

i-Pmart is also a big seller of litecoin mining equipment, selling GPU-based rigs both to advanced users to self-assemble with the ‘Savvy Pack’, and a ‘Newbie Pack’ for beginners that includes the option to have i-Pmart assemble, host, and even operate the hardware for them.

Zilzar

With the online halal (permissible, lawful for Muslims) industry on the rise with an estimated US$1.6 trillion worth in 2018 and Malaysia with one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, an e-commerce that ensures this is poised to succeed.

Zilzar was founded by the Malaysian prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, at the World Islamic Economic Forum. The name means an earthquake in Arabic, as shown in an article by The Guardian.

Zilzar offers a platform for businesses and consumers to sell halal products and services to each other with entrepreneurs as its core market.

Consumers on Zilzar are allowed to trade products from prayer beads and electronic Qurans to hijabs and films. All its sellers and products are verified by certification bodies around the world.
Its chief executive Rushdi Siddiqui said that Zilzar is going after Alibaba’s suppliers.

“Technology is a great equaliser. Aid has not helped Muslims in emerging markets and Zilzar was trying to feed them; now it’s time to teach them to fish,” said Siddiqui.

Halal products should not contain alcohol or pork traces or promote gambling.

FashionValet

Online fashion and beauty retailer FashionValet emerges as a frontrunner when it comes to the local success story.

FashionValet carries over 200 brands and 10,000 products from fashion designers and celebrity brands in Southeast Asia.

The company was founded in 2010 by local celebrity Vivy Yusof and Fadzarudin Shah Anuar, offering a wide range of ready-to-wear garments for women, accessories, and handbags. It works by offering a simplified shopping experience and a customer service team to assist online shoppers.

In 2016, FashionValet raised Series B round financing from Start Today Co., owner of Japan’s leading online fashion mall ZOZOTOWN.

Hermo

Focussing on selling Korean cosmetics online for Malaysia consumers, Hermo was founded in 2012 by Ian Chua and PS Chong, who is the VP of Merchandise, before adding Ian Mok a year later as its current COO. The company is based in Johor Bahru.

Inspired by the hassle women around them have to go through to pick out beauty products, Hermo was born.

The first funding Hermo raised was a seed and angel financing from Singaporean investment firm Crystal Horse Investments and Malaysian angel investor Tan Swee Yeong. In 2015, it secured a US$2 million Series A round led by Gobi Partners.

Also Read: 6 Singapore-bred e-commerces that tread ahead among fierce competitions

However, in 2017, Gobi Partners announced that it has sold its stake in Hermo to Tokyo-listed istyle inc, a market design company that operates the Japanese cosmetics e-commerce site Cosme.com.

Gobi said it sold its stake because of istyle’s ability to build international companies and its positioning in North Asia, something that Hermo wants to do.

HiShop

Also offering health and beauty products, HiShop is Hermo’s local competition. The company stated on its official site that it guarantees direct sourcing from the official brand distributors.

HiShop works with beauty advisors, seeking to give access to customers’ beauty choices and decisions. It also has built a beauty community that offers privileges such as rewards and exclusive beauty events invite.

Poplook

Another local online fashion startup is Poplook, modest wear-focussed e-commerce. It offers workwear, maternity, plus-size, children wear and, more.

Poplook was founded in 2009 as an online-only fashion label but has since expanded into the brick-and-mortar market with two physical stores in the Klang Valley.

According to Star2, Poplook, which recently showed its collection at the 2019 Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week, believes that what they offer is also a way to embrace the Malaysian culture of helping others and growing together.

Nine local players, multifaceted product categories offered. Although Lazada and Shopee remain monopolising the market, the presence of the local players excites the monotone market.

It’s sure still a long way before the local startups can catch up to be in the same caliber of the international e-commerce players, but the journey to get there is a learning curve on its own for the watching eyes, especially after an ambitious mission for investing more in tech by Malaysia’s Oil and gas company Petronas setting up a US$350 million venture capital fund to invest in technology startups around the world.
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